Is there a 2018 tennis thread yet?

[Janik]

A good day overall for the Brits at Tour level yesterday. And Scotland, as Andy Murray selfishly ignored Yorkshire-day to beat Beverley's Kyle Edmund (when he loses, he is a representative of the People's Republic of Yorkshire). Also wins for Jo Konta over Sofia Kenin in San Jose and Cameron Norrie against Feliciano Lopez at Los Cabos. Defeat though for Katie Swan in Washington whilst Katie Boulter is on the brink of going out overnight as she was a set down and 4-4 in the second when rain curtailed her R2 match.

On Swan, she apparently only got a wild card for Washington at the behest of Andy Murray('s management company, who also now represent Swan), who apparently made an entry for Katie a condition of Murray also playing in the event! I guess if you have weight you might as well throw it around. Or something... She looked nervous in set one, and then I turned over to the Hockey.

Konta's win is a relief as not backing up the showing against Serena would have been painful. As Jo has very little to defend from last summer she is moving back up the rankings with this run. But it would take two more wins, i.e. making the final, to push herself back into the top 32 and a seeding for New York. Not that Konta, with her one match at a time attitude, will be thinking about that - her focus will just be on a QF against Elise Mertens in two days time, and given Jo's record against top 20 ranked players this year (bad) that is probably sensible.

[Janik]

Other results since yesterday – Swan also lost in R1 of the doubles in Washington. And at Challenger level Alex Ward lost in R2 in Lexington, whilst Gabi Taylor and Katy Dunne both won their R1 matches. It was rather a wipe out in Woking as only Freya Christie won yesterday, and she was playing another Brit in Francesca Jones. All the others (Jodie Anna Burrage, Maia Lumsden and Edn Silva) went out in R2 of the singles.
The only doubles win was also an all-British affair, Christie/Murray [3] coming through against Paladini Jennings/Wooller. Barnett/Lumsden lost their R1 match.

As for today, James Ward won his R2 singles in Chengdu against Duckhee Lee. He now faces a QF tomorrow against Roman Safiullin. Play is also underway today in Woking, and the last Brit in the singles, Freya Christie, has lost to Andreea Amalia Rosco. All four doubles QFs are coming up, three involving Brits of various seedings, one of whom is Christie.
Taylor and Dunne play their R2 matches in Lexington against Jessica Pegular and Astra Sharma respectively. Webley-Smith/Symmonds are also in Doubles action. On the Men’s side of this, Jay Clarke plays his R2 singles match against Andrew Harris, with L.Broady/Reese playing a doubles QF.

But the main interest is at Tour level, where we have the following: -

San Jose
R2 Heather Watson vs Venus Williams – nb4 7:00pm local time

Washington
R2 Katie Boulter vs Allie Kiick – to finish, 2nd on Court 1
R3 Andy Murray vs Marcus Copil – last on the Stadium Court
QF J.Murray/Soares vs Sharan/Sitak – before Boulter vs Kiick

Los Cabos
QF Cameron Norrie vs Adrian Mannarino [4]
QF Salisbury/Erlich vs Fritz/Kokkinakis

[Satchmo Distel]

Good for Murray that was more more aggressive against Edmund. That's how he has to play.

Copil game is scheduled for 7.30pm EST

[Janik]

No, it isn't. That is a media estimate of when it would happen, not a scheduling. There is no not before in the official order of play, it will simply follow the other matches on that court, which means it might be later or earlier. As it happens it's raining again so its vastly unlikely the preceding three matches will be concluded by 7:30pm. In fact it probably won't get played today at all.

[Evariste Euler Gauss]

It finished just after 3am local time! There's rather a difference between the event licensing laws in the US and UK, isn't there, with Wimbo having to stop at 11pm to prevent late night noise in the 'hood.

[Janik]

You could have mentioned that Muzza won! It took a third set tie-break, apparently. That is his third three-setter in a row, which is going to be testing the fitness rather. Alex de Minaur (his QF opponent) will probably never have a better chance of beating one of the Big Four.
Also completed yesterday was Katie Boulter's R2 match against Allie Kiick - Boulter won set two 7-5 after they restarted at 4-4 but then lost 6-1 in the third. This was something of a blown opportunity, as the top half of the Women’s draw in Washington is rather denuded after top seed Caroline Wozniacki withdrew at late notice.* Donna Vekic is the only seed left on that side of the draw, following a 15-13 deciding set tie-break win against Fanny Stollar.**
Rain saw most of the Doubles in Washington yesterday bumped in favour of singles, with just one Men’s match played as it was a R1 game that hadn’t yet gone on court. That featured the Zverev brothers in tandem and they beat the top seeds, which will have been some consolation to Mischa after he lost to Sascha in the singles earlier in the day. Hopefully they enjoyed playing each other it rather more than the Melzer boys did at Wimbledon in 2015. The rescheduling means J.Murray/Soares didn’t get to play yesterday.

San Jose is running to schedule, which means Heather Watson against Venus Williams happened as planned. Having already lost Serena (and defending champion Madison Keys, see below), the organisers would have been rather worried when Watson levelled the match at a set all. Sadly for Heather that was the high point as she lost set three 6-0.
With that she probably signs off from the full tour for a while (in singles, her doubles QF here is still to be played). Watson sneaked through a crack to play this event, as the ranking cut off for main draws is 6 weeks in advance, so she was able to get in with her pre-Eastbourne and Wimbledon standing of 80-odd. However that won’t get her into the Prem5s over the next two weeks, and the qualifying cut-off is only two weeks in advance rather than six, so she is now working a 130ish rank. Which is touch-and-go to even make the q-draws of the main tour stuff. Her name is therefore down for ITF events in both those weeks.

Meanwhile in Los Cabos, down Mexico way, Cameron Norrie is into his second straight Tour level Semi-Final after a two set win over Adrian Mannarino meant he matched his run at Atlanta last week. Bettering it, and making a first ATP level singles final (he made a doubles one with Edmund back in May) means beating #2 seed Fabio Fognini. Easier done on a hard court than a clay one, but still far from straightforward. Norrie is the only Brit still standing in Los Cabos, as Salisbury/Erlich lost in the QFs of the Doubles.

* - It’s been a very bad week for the WTA with top seeds withdrawing at the last minute. As well as Wozniacki in Washington, both Garbine Muguruza and Madison Keys pulled the same stunt in San Jose, leading to Lucky Losers taking their spots and making high profile scheduled matches (notably Muguruza vs Azarenka) not end up being as billed. No-one takes this this kind of sh*t well, but Americans will get particularly uppity about it. The only top 10 player and top 2 seed to play this week was Sloane Stephens, and she lost in R2 in Washington.
** - I watched a chunk of this match, and have a complaint to direct at Nike. Please come up with some more potential clothing combinations for your players to wear! Stollar and Vekic were in completely identical outfits, green tank tops and visors (shade possibly emerald), navy skirts with a white waistband, white Nike shoes. This is clearly a template as others (such as Boulter) having been wearing the same gear. Given that both stand around 6 feet tall and have long blonde pair gather into a ponytail when they play, they were impossible to tell apart if not shown in close-up. It took concentration to remember which was at which end of the court, which is just unnecessary.



As for Challenger level, James Ward is into the Semis in Chengdu after a win this morning against Roman Safiullin. His last four opponent will be Henri Laaksonen [1]. Lexington is a round earlier, as the result from that are yesterday’s. Those included Jay Clarke continuing his good form as he is through to the QFs after a straight sets win over Andrew Harris. His next opponent is Chung Yun-seong. Hopefully it will go better than L.Broady/Reese’s doubles QF, where the #4 seeds lost heavily.

On the Women’s side in Kansas, yesterday provided a R2 win for Katy Dunne over Astra Sharma, but defeat for Gabi Taylor [7] vs Jessica Pegula in the same round and also a loss for Webley-Smith/Simmonds in the Doubles QF. Dunne now plays Pegula in the Singles QF.

Finally to Surrey, where I’ve already noted Freya Christie’s loss in singles in the Woking QF. The doubles last eight matches happened yesterday, and following those Silva/Ka and Arbuthnott/Danilina [4] will play SFs, whilst Christie/Murray [3] and Grey/Nicholls [1] are out, both after losses in match breakers, the later to Silva/Ka. There will be one Brit in a final as they two remaining half-British pairs play each other in the Semis.


Schedule

Full Tour

San Jose
QF Jo Konta vs Elise Mertens [4] – 2nd match on after 12pm start
QF Konta/Zhang vs Watson/Buzarnesu [2] – nb4 3pm and suitable rest

Washington
QF Andy Murray vs Alex de Minaur – follows a match which is nb4 7pm
QF J.Murray/Soares [4] vs Sharan/Sitak [Q] – 2pm

Los Cabos
SF Cameron Norrie vs Fabio Fognini [2] – nb4 7:30pm

Challengers

Woking
SF Silva/Ka vs Arbuthnott/Danilina [4] – nb4 2pm

Lexington
QF Katy Dunne vs Jessica Pegula – nb4 12pm
QF Jay Clarke [7] vs Chung Yun-seong – nb4 7pm

Chengdu
SF James Ward vs Henri Laaksonen [1] – 2nd match on after 11am start

[Janik]

Apparently Murray was in tears by the side of the court after his match ended, and has said he is dubious about playing the Quarter-Final. He questioned some of the decision making that led to the match starting after midnight, whilst acknowledging that weather issues played a part. Personally I think he would be nuts to play again today - he has achieved want he needed from Washington with three wins and lots of court time.

Murray's run to date will mean a 400+ place ranking jump, which is not really important as protected rankings and wild cards will be the order of the day until he is either back to where he once operated, or calls it quits on the whole thing. Not that Murray needed a backdoor entry for Washington; the six week entry lag meant his Wimbledon 2017 points were still intact so he got in as of right. More important ranking rises achieved this week are:-
Cameron Norrie, who is also looking at a new career high and would be knocking on the door of the top 50 if he won the crown at Los Cabos;
Jay Clarke, who is looking at a new career high already and could get into the top 150 if he wins the title in Kentucky (I think I said Kansas in the post above, misplacing this event!);
James Ward, who is close to breaking back into the top 300 already and would do so comfortably with one or two more wins (a title would give him 222 points, good for ~250);
Jo Konta, whose run is bouncing her back up towards the Slam seeding spots - two more wins would have her back to ~30;
and Katie Boulter, who has edged forward a bit to another likely new career high with her R1 win, though a top 100 breakthrough was left dangling as two more wins would have done it


In non-British news, I'm slightly surprised to find that Juan Martin del Potro has never been higher than #4 in the world. But he might better that next week if Sascha Zverev doesn't defend his Washington title. Delpo is adding points as he is into the Semis of Los Cabos, and currently stands ahead of Zverev in the 'live' standings. However the Mexican event is an ATP250 and Washington is a ATP500, so the German can still collect enough to maintain his spot. And on the WTA, Vika Azarenka is back inside the top 100 with her run to the QFs of San Jose and could yet reach the top 50 this week.

[Satchmo Distel]

Murray would have had to play two games today in any case. I don't know, however, if the organizers could have bumped him up the order by switching games to other courts, or even put his game on one of the lesser courts. Maybe there were contractual issues with TV or sponsors or ticket holders to get the game played*, but it seems odd that they couldn't have played it at, say, 11am today given the men's QF's didn't start before 2pm.

It's also possible that his anger is due to feeling he's not got enough in the tank for five set tennis at this point, so the old doubts about whether he can play the Grand Slams are still there.

It looks like all four men's quarters are in the same stadium today and the first, Goffin v Tsitsipas, has just started (presumably at 2pm EST).

The women's are all on the John A Harris court; Bencic has just broken Petkovic in the 3rd game, first set of the first QF.

*Edit: The organizers say it was so as not to disappoint ticket holders. The tournament director is very patronizing towards Murray here, I feel:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/...=.849953d704e0

Murray may just be emotionally spent for this week, a huge 3 days for him in the context of his career. He has no automatic obligation to the organizers to show up if not at his mental, emotional and physical best.

[Janik]

And he won't be playing, either the QF of this nor in Montreal next week. The right decision for him as an individual, not as good for the tournaments involved. Not shifting him vs Copil to a minor court yesterday was robbing Peter to pay Paul.

[Etienne]

Meanwhile Jay Clarke retired complaining of dizziness and Norrie, Ward and Konta all lost.

[Janik]

Add Dunne to that list as well. A good week fizzled out very quickly there.

[Etienne]

Yeah, there's been some decent results at futures level, where Paris and Storrie are in the semi-final in the men's 25k in Dublin, while Appleton and Hill are in the women's 15k semi there. There's an ongoing debate as to whether the UK should host more futures tournaments to give opportunities to domestic players who can't afford to travel. On the face of it they might be better off encouraging Irish tennis to put more on instead. Sasha Hill's run is the most impressive given that she's only 17 and I'm not sure she'd played a professional match before.

Further afield, Paul Jubb and Evan Moore have both come through qualifying to reach the semi-finals in Slovakia.

[Janik]

Watson sneaked through a crack to play [San Jose], as the ranking cut off for main draws is 6 weeks in advance, so she was able to get in with her pre-Eastbourne and Wimbledon standing of 80-odd. However that won’t get her into the Prem5s over the next two weeks, and the qualifying cut-off is only two weeks in advance rather than six, so she is now working a 130ish rank. Which is touch-and-go to even make the q-draws of the main tour stuff.

Huh, maybe Heather should have gambled on going to Canada, as a rash of late withdrawals due, amongst other things, lower ranked players making the later stages of San Jose and Washington meant there hasn't been a full qualifying draw for the Prem5!
One of the beneficiaries of this is Katie Boulter, who got what appeared a duff draw against Donna Vekic, the #2 seed, in q1 but which turned into a good one when Vekic got to the Washington SFs and couldn't make it to Montreal in time. Boulter now has to win only one match, against one of the two alternates who were around or a wild card. And that doesn't even capture things as the alternate is Alicja Rosolska, who was in the vicinity as she will be playing doubles, which she is a specialist of, to the point where she has no singles ranking and has only played one other singles match all year in much the same circumstances, in which she was double-bageled, and the wild card is Leylah Annie Fernandez, who is a 15 year-old Canadian ranked #730 with just five singles wins all year and three of those in ITF level qualifying. That is called catching a break, Katie.

[Satchmo Distel]

Serena has pulled out of the Rogers Cup. Konta plays #11 seed Ostapenko tomorrow. I'm not sure why Suarez-Navarro has to play qualifiers.

[Janik]

Not a good draw for Jo.
Things like that with Suarez-Navarro are often down to a late descion to play. The qualifying sign-up deadline is only two weeks before rather than six for the main draw.

[Janik]

Last week Britain had three players still due to play singles at tour level on Friday. This week it's only Tuesday and Jo Konta is the sole player still standing. In an hours time it might be none, as Konta is currently on court with Jelena Ostapenko. Though the momentum is currently with Jo - she has just won set 2 6-1 to level things up.

[Janik]

Konta won, so there is one Brit beyond R1 at Tour level this week. To make R3 will mean beating either Azarenka or Mladenovic, who are playing at the moment.

[Janik]

Jo Konta has played really well so far against Vika Azarenka, her ball striking, movement and desicion making is on a par with anything she has ever achieved. Fingers crossed, then, that an ill-timed twin break doesn't spoil things. It has come with Konta 6-3 3-0 up, and on a run of seven straight games.

[Etienne]

Fingers crossed, then, that an ill-timed twin break doesn't spoil things.

Yes, the maternity break has really affected Azarenka, and I imagine twins would be even worse.

Poor Heather Watson didn't benefit from dropping down from tour level as she was whupped in straight sets by Ann Li, a promising junior, but not in the top 300 as a senior. The other British women in the Landisville tournament had mixed fortunes. Gabi Taylor managed to break her own poor form thanks to a very fortunate draw - against a wild card who had won her place by winning a minor local tournament. Katie Swan won too. Naomi Broady lost, and Harriet Dart (who'd been due to play Swan) withdrew.

For the men, Clarke and Broady are due to play each other in the US 100k, while James Ward benefiting from his decision to go to China instead has reached the quarter-finals of a 150k which will put him back in the top 300. Next he plays Duckhee Lee (the No 1 deaf player in the world) who he narrowly beat in his previous tournament - Lee served for the match at one point.

[Janik]

Fingers crossed, then, that an ill-timed twin break doesn't spoil things.

Yes, the maternity break has really affected Azarenka, and I imagine twins would be even worse.

That one definitely was auto-correct (not so sure about the one over on World where ursus is covering for me). Rain break, obviously. An overnight one now. Konta will have to complete against Azarenka this morning, and if she wins play Svitolina later in the day.

Svitolina got through via a retirement for Miheala Buzarnescu, who skidded on a slippery line and was immediately clutching her ankle and wailing in pain. It looked really serious (she left the court in a wheelchair), like a break or ruptured ligaments or something, but reports now are it is 'just' a sprain. If true that is a relief as Buzarnescu has been one of the good news stories of 2018, making a late top 50 career for herself in the second go at Tennis after her first was injury-ruined. For that to run into the buffers after less than a year at the elite level because of another serious injury would be a very black ending.

[Etienne]

Landisville has been a total disaster for British players. Watson and Broady lost in the first round, Dart didn't even get that far. Swan gave a walkover after winning in round 1 and Taylor was hospitalised at 1 set all against Brengle with what looked like heat exhaustion.

[Janik]

All the eggs in the Jo Konta basket, then. I didn't see the end, but it only took her 4 more games to complete the win against Azarenka. She is now on court against Svitolina.

[Etienne]

Meanwhile Tsitsipas has beaten Djokovic, following on from a straight sets win over Thiem. With Shapovalov beating Fognini, Tiafoe beating Raonic and getting to a third set tie break with Dmitrov and the even younger Felix Auger Aliassime beating Pouille it feels like a next gen is taking over.

[Janik]

Svitolina was just too consistent for Konta, so that ends British singles interest for this week at Tour level. James Ward and Liam Broady are still alive in their respective challengers, though. And Samantha Murray is through to the SF of the $25k ITF event in Chiswick, though she is currently a set down in that.

[Satchmo Distel]

Sharapova also out.

There are more seeds left in the women's quarters than the men's (6 v 5) but all the 5 men are Top 6 seeds. Nadal (1) v Cilic (6) is tonight's headline game, but there are scheduling issues again with the weather and I'm not sure how the organizers are going to resolve them. The order of play shows them trying to play them all on Centre but surely that cannot happen (although the website says they played 9 matches on center yesterday)?